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Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

A literary or visual form in which characters, events or images represent or symbolise ideas. It can be a story of some complexity corresponding to another situation on a deeper level. Tortious and the hare - the characters are symbols for going to fast vs keeping at it wheras the book itself is allegory for slow and steady wins the race. - moral/ overall symbolism idea

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

Repetition of an identical consonant sound at the beginning of stressed words, usually close together. Alliteration can create different effects. Used in poetry and prose).

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

An indirect reference to an event, person, place, another work of literature, etc. that gives additional layers of meaning to a text or enlarges its frame of reference. Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out”, about a boy’s accidental death, alludes to Macbeth’s line about life: “Out, out, brief candle”.

Question 4

Ambiguity

Answer 4

Where language, action, tone, character, etc. are (sometimes deliberately), unclear and may yield two or more interpretations or meanings. Gertrude’s actions and character are ambiguous in the early acts of Hamlet.

Question 5

Ambivalence

Answer 5

Simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings towards something or someone. A writer’s attitude to a character or event may not be clear-cut, but may seem to hold at least two responses at the same time. Distinguish this from ‘ambiguity’.

Question 6

Anagnorisis

Answer 6

a Greek term associated with tragedy but also used with fiction). A moment of recognition or discovery usually late in the plot where the protagonist discovers something about his or her true nature or behaviour or situation. Elizabeth Bennet, late in Pride and Prejudice dramatically realises her prejudice.

Question 7

Antithesis

Answer 7

Expressing contrasting ideas by balancing words of opposite meaning and idea in a line or sentence, for rhetorical impact: “They promised opportunity and provided slavery”.

Question 8

Apostrophe

Answer 8

An exclamatory passage where the speaker or writer breaks off in the flow of a narrative or poem to address a dead or absent person, a particular audience, or object.

Question 9

Assonance

Answer 9

Repetition of similar vowel sounds close to one another (“The sweep / of easy wind”: Frost). This can create atmosphere in descriptive poetry. Sound this aloud to hear the effect.

Question 10

Atmosphere

Answer 10

It refers specifically to place – a setting, or surroundings.

Question 11

Bathos

Answer 11

A sudden descent from the serious, to the ridiculous or trivial, for rhetorical effect. “His pride and his bicycle tyre were punctured in the first hour”.

Question 12

Bildungsroman

Answer 12

German term for a novel focusing on the development of a character from youth to maturity (Joyce: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is a famous example for a male; Jane Eyre for a female).

Question 13

Blank verse

Answer 13

Unrhymed poetry, not broken into stanzas, keeping to a strict pattern in each line, usually in iambic pentameter. Used by Shakespeare.

Question 14

Caesura

Answer 14

A break or pause within a line of poetry, created by a comma or full stop or unmarked pause needed by the sense. Used effectively for emphasis, or to change direction or pace.

Question 15

Caricature

Answer 15

An exaggerated representation of a character, often emphasising physical or vocal features, usually for comic and satiric purposes. Jane Austen and Dickens frequently use this.

Question 16

Colloquial

Answer 16

Everyday speech and language; as opposed to a literary or formal register. The inclusion of the odd colloquial word or phrase in an otherwise formal work can be striking.

Question 17

Conceit (extended metaphor)

Answer 17

A witty thought or idea or image, a fanciful or deliberately far-fetched comparison, as found in Shakespeare and other 16th and 17th century English poetry.

Question 18

Concrete imagery
tactile 
olfactory
auditory
visual
gustatory

Answer 18

Refers to objects or aspects that may be perceived by one or more of the five senses, through the language used.

Question 19

Connotation

Answer 19

An association suggested by a word, useful when discussing diction.

Question 20

Consonance

Answer 20

Where the final consonants are the same in two or more words close together, as in Macbeth’s “Poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage”.

Question 21

Context

Answer 21

The circumstances, background or environment in which an event (or text) takes place, or an idea is set, and in terms of which it can be understood. (ii) The part of a text that surrounds a word or passage and determines or clarifies its meaning.

Question 22

Contradiction

Answer 22

Stating or implying the opposite of what has been said or suggested.

Question 23

Couplet (rhyming couplet)

Answer 23

Two consecutive rhyming lines of verse. May clinch or emphasise an idea.

Question 24

Defamiliarisation

Answer 24

The technique of making the familiar seem new and strange, of making us see more vividly, of awakening the mind. Although a specific term of literary theory, it is generally the aim of art and all good writing. It may be achieved, for example, through point of view, or perspective, as in Gulliver’s Travels, or unusual chronology, or diction and imagery.

Question 25

Denouement

Answer 25

From the French, literally ‘unknotting’. How the ending of a novel or play turns out, how the plot is unravelled or revealed.

Question 26

diction

Answer 26

The writer’s choice and arrangement of words or distinctive vocabulary (its effectiveness and precision).

Question 27

Didactic

Answer 27

Describes text where there is an intention to preach a (usually) moral, political or religious point it usually has a negative connotation.

Question 28

Dramatic irony

Answer 28

Where a character (or characters) is/are unaware of something of which the audience/reader and often other characters on stage are aware. A powerful tool especially in drama, used for tragic or comic purposes.

Question 29

Elegy

Answer 29

A mournful lament for times past or the dead. It is a specific poetic form, but the term can be used more generally. “Elegiac” describes a meditative mood in prose or verse, reflecting on the past.

Question 30

End-stopped line

Answer 30

A line of poetry where the meaning pauses or stops at the end of the line. The full stop allows a statement or idea to stand out clearly, and provides a pause for the reader’s reflection.

Question 31

Enjambement

Answer 31

The opposite of the above. The sense flows over from one line to another, or through a series of lines, or to the next stanza. This can reflect a build-up of emotion or some other effect. From the French for “leg”.

Question 32

Epigram

Answer 32

A concise, pointed, witty statement. ‘Epigrammatic’ style means those qualities in prose or poetry. Oscar Wilde is a master of epigram. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

Question 33

Epiphany

Answer 33

From the Greek “manifestation”, it means a sudden realisation or moment of awakening in which something is seen in a new light, or its essential nature is perceived – which could be a moment of radiance or devastation. Used to effect in some short stories, as well as other fiction an poetry.

Question 34

Form

Answer 34

The physical structure or shape of a work, the arrangement of its parts, the patterns, divisions and structures used. In poetry there are specific traditional, metrical and rhyming ‘forms’ (ode, ballad, sonnet, etc.), and modern, non-metrical forms.

Question 35

Free indirect discourse or speech

Answer 35

Is where the third person or omniscient narrator takes on (for a short while) the voice, speech characteristics of a character, taking us into the mind and thoughts of the character without indicating this directly. It can be used sympathetically or ironically. Jane Austen uses it to great effect.

Question 36

Free verse

Answer 36

Verse written without any fixed or traditional structure in metre or rhyme. Commonly used since the early 20th century. It is very flexible because it follows the speech rhythms of the language.

Question 37

Genre

Answer 37

A specific type or kind of literature.

Question 38

Hyperbole

Answer 38

A deliberate exaggeration for various effects – comic, tragic, etc. When Frost writes that the beauty of Spring “is only so an hour”, he emphasises how very brief the life of precious things seems.

Question 39

Iambic

Answer 39

The ‘iamb’ is a metrical measure, or foot, in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable (“To be, or not to be”). Iambic pentameter (five iambs in a line) is the commonest metrical pattern in English poetry, and notably Shakespeare. (Macbeth: “Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown”. Sound it out to find those five stresses. There are other kinds of iambic line such as the four-iamb line, called tetrameter.)

Question 40

Interior monologue

Answer 40

Where the narrator depicts the thoughts pouring randomly from a character’s mind, so that the reader experiences these as if overhearing them, unfiltered by comments from the narrator or adjusted grammatically..

Question 41

Internal rhyme

Answer 41

Rhymes within a line of poetry.

Question 42

Intertextuality

Answer 42

The shaping of some part of a text’s meaning by another text, which can take the form, for example, of quotation, allusion, parody or re-working of an idea or story.

Question 43

Irony

Answer 43

A gap or mismatch between what is said and what is intended. For example, between what a character or group might see or think, and what the author wishes us to see or think. A powerful tool for a writer to expose hypocrisies and lack of awareness.

Question 44

Lyric

Answer 44

A song-like poem expressing personal feeling. Originally a song performed to a lyre or early harp.

Question 45

Metafiction

Answer 45

Fiction that draws attention to the fact that it is fiction or construct of the author, and to the writing process itself. The author may break the reader out of the fictional frame and comment on what s/he is doing or concerned about in the act of writing, or offer the reader a choice of endings, etc.

Question 46

Metaphor

Answer 46

A comparison between two unlike things that are seen as alike in some aspect, without the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’. It can facilitate understanding of an abstract concept (for example, life as a journey) or open up the imagination by creating a striking visual and sensual link between things not normally associated.

Question 47

Metre

Answer 47

The organisation of lines of verse into regular patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, to achieve a rhythmic effect. “Iambic” and “trochaic” metres are useful to know.

Question 48

Mood

Answer 48

Describes an emotional state of mind. It can also describe the emotional response created in the mind of the reader or audience by elements in literature. Distinguish from ‘atmosphere’, which is to do with place.

Question 49

Monologue

Answer 49

A speech of some length that expresses a character’s thoughts out loud, sometimes addressing other characters. Distinguish from “apostrophe”, “aside”, and “soliloquy”.

Question 50

Motif

Answer 50

Recurrent element in a narrative or drama (such as an image or spoken phrase) that has symbolic significance and can contribute, through cumulative effect, to a theme. For example, the covered lamp in Williams’ Streetcar, or the flute music in Miller’s Death of a Salesman.

Question 51

Omniscient

Answer 51

“third person” narrator: An “all-knowing” narrator who can see into the minds of any character and see any event, place, time, from the ‘outside’. It is the most common and flexible narrative method. A variation on the third person narrator, the “omniscient/limited” narrator, knows everything about one character and is limited to that character. Omniscient and first person modes can be mixed in a work.

Question 52

Onomatopoeia

Answer 52

The use of words that imitate or suggest the sounds associated with them, such as “murmur” or “buzz”.

Question 53

Oxymoron

Answer 53

Where two words, seemingly contradictory or incongruous are joined, often suggesting something complex, as in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet says that “parting is such sweet sorrow”.

Question 54

Paradox

Answer 54

An apparently contradictory statement, which on investigation is found to contain a truth. (For example Frost’s title “Nothing gold can stay”). Distinguish from the compressed paradox of ‘oxymoron’.

Question 55

Parody

Answer 55

A comic imitation of another work, for deliberately comic, ridiculous or satiric effect. It is actively critical or attacking.

Question 56

Pastiche

Answer 56

Imitation of the style of another work (content and manner) sometimes mildly ridiculing, but often in homage to the original (distinguish from ‘parody’) and creating a new work.

Question 57

Persona

Answer 57

The identity or character assumed by the writer in a work (for example, T.S. Eliot and Sylvia Plath assume another character in some of their poetry, as in “Prufrock” and “Lady Lazarus”).

Question 58

Personification

Answer 58

Where human feelings or sensations are attributed to an inanimate object.

Question 59

Plot

Answer 59

The events of a narrative in the order the writer has chosen to arrange them in, to show cause and effect or pattern, for artistic and emotional effect. Distinguish from ‘story’.

Question 60

Anthropomorphism

Answer 60

something nonhuman behaving as human

Question 61

Point of view

Answer 61

The angle from which a narrative is told, reflecting who is seeing and speaking. Point of view may shift within a work or even a paragraph.

Question 62

Protagonist

Answer 62

Main character in a work.

Question 63

Refrain

Answer 63

Repetition of a phrase or lines in a work of literature, often at the end of a stanza.

Question 64

Rhythm

Answer 64

The succession of strong and weak (or stressed and unstressed) syllables to create a patterned recurrence of sound. Distinguish this from metre, which has to do with the technical, identifiable organisation of lines into units of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Question 65

Satire

Answer 65

Exposing and ridiculing of human follies in a society, sometimes with the aim to reform, sometimes predominantly to deflate. May be gentle, comic, biting or bitter, or a combination.

Question 66

Setting

Answer 66

Context and location in which a work of literature takes place: it involves the physical place, time, and social environment.

Question 67

Simile

Answer 67

Where a comparison is made explicit with ‘as’ or ‘like’ (distinguish from metaphor). Can make descriptions vivid and unusual. Dickens is a master of the simile.

Question 68

Skaz

Answer 68

A technique of narration that mirrors oral narration with its hesitations, corrections, grammatical mistakes, interactions, etc.

Question 69

Soliloquy

Answer 69

A speech by a character along on stage, thinking aloud, revealing thoughts and emotions, or communicating directly with the audience. Powerful tool for revealing psychological complexity, used often by Shakespeare.

Question 70

Sonnet

Answer 70

A fourteen-line rhyming poem usually in iambic pentameter. Rhyme schemes and organisation of lines vary, depending on the type of sonnet (for example, Shakespearian), but often set out as a block of 8 lines (octave) and six lines (sestet).

Question 71

Stanza

Answer 71

The blocks of lines into which a poem is organised. In traditional forms of poetry each stanza follows a scheme governing metre, lines and rhymes.

Question 72

Stream of consciousness

Answer 72

The representation of a character’s (or first person narrator’s) thought processes-feelings, sensations, memories, etc. as a random stream of thoughts.

Question 73

Style

Answer 73

The distinctive linguistic traits in an author’s work, but also involves the writer’s quality of vision and subject matter. It concerns theme, diction (emotional, abstract, poetic), sentence construction, imagery, sound, etc.

Question 74

Subtext

Answer 74

Ideas, feelings, thoughts, not dealt with directly in the text (drama especially), but existing underneath. Characters don’t always express their real thoughts.

Question 75

Symbol

Answer 75

Objects that represent or evoke an idea or concept of wider, abstract significance, as roses represent love, walls divisions.

Question 76

Syntax

Answer 76

The grammatical structure of words in a sentence. The normal order of words or grammatical structures can be slightly displaced to create a particular effect, without losing the sense. A powerful tool in poetry, especially.

Question 77

Theme

Answer 77

Central ideas or issues in a work, often abstract (for example racial injustice). Can also refer to an argument raised or pursued in a text, like a thesis.

Question 78

Tone

Answer 78

Created where the writing conveys the attitude and emotions of the writer towards his/her subjects through aspects of language like diction, syntax, and rhythm.